


it's going swimmingly

by carnivorousBelvedere



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Body Exploration, Established Relationship, M/M, Transformation, but also horny, merman, something fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:34:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26111956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnivorousBelvedere/pseuds/carnivorousBelvedere
Summary: Dirk Strider helps Jake English run a business where he safely categorizes and disposes of magical objects.They also kind of just started dating.One day on the job Dirk makes a major mistake, and the results are... well, rather transformative.
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	it's going swimmingly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeachBriseadh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachBriseadh/gifts).



Jake drops the box on the lab bench surface across from you. 

You look up from the computer suddenly, somewhat startled by the noise of the glass bottles clinking together in what actually appears to be a dusty metal rack. 

“This just in,” he says, patting the top of the sealed vials. 

You squint at it. “That’s it?” 

Jake nods his head, matching your disbelief. “That’s it. Guess the late James Clary wasn’t much a fan of magic.” 

“Huh,” you say, scooting your tall stool closer to the bench surface where your archiver’s interface is open on the laptop. “You haven’t been to one of these estate sales in a while and not gotten so little out of it.” 

Sometimes the amount of mysterious magical objects left in the hands of recently departed individuals numbered in the truckloads. The surviving family usually didn’t want to deal with it, or sell it, as most people would rather not risk selling haunted, cursed or demon-summoning objects to an unknowing individual. 

The lawsuits you’ve seen come out of that situation really are something. 

Of course, it is occasionally inevitable. Jake has apparently run into his fair share of haunted dressers and wardrobes in this line of work before he hired you. 

When it comes to estate sales or house cleanings, most mysterious objects of unidentifiable origin are disposed of through experts in the field of magic. It is largely an area of study as well. 

Which is why you’re working with Jake now. You’re his archivist, and you keep records on whatever it is you and Jake bring back from these estate liquidations. 

Various magical odds and ends up in your hands, usually if the object can’t otherwise be identified as safe, and it’s up to you and Jake to determine what it is. 

Magic is a vast study, going back years and years, and takes a fair amount of risk many don’t want to get involved with, but it’s an otherwise consistent line of work you’ve gotten involved with. 

Jake used to run the business with his mom, but she retired and he then had to find someone to do the archival work because he definitely wasn’t into it.

He reached out to you, an old friend. At the time you were trying to find a new outlet in tech, so it was just a natural progression of things that you accepted. 

That and also the part where you’ve always had a thing for Jake ever since you met him. Yeah, there’s no way you were ever going to say no to that job offer. 

Recently though, things have progressed a little more between you both. 

You and Jake actually just started dating. 

Like a month ago. 

It all started when you two had to perform a demon clearing ritual on an old tome. 

The demon had attacked you before you both managed to seal it back in the third realm, and in the seconds following the success of that life or death experience, Jake had grabbed and kissed you. 

You kissed him back. 

After a few awkward conversations, a lot more kissing, and a fair number of jokes that it only took you almost dying for Jake to finally make a move, the two of you decided to just make it official. 

Dating someone you ran a business with had a different rhythm to it, but it was a generally welcome one. You had been good friends before, even better now that you worked closely with each other. Now you two had moments where you were sometimes shy with each other. 

Although maybe that was just you, getting self conscious every time Jake so much as smiled at you. It’s not like you weren’t before, but before you had just assumed he would never be interested in you so you had flung that possibility to the wind and hadn’t cared. 

“Okay well, I’m almost finished with this thing,” you gesture to the amulet open in its case on the table. The contents hadn’t contained much that significant for anyone. It had been the vessel the previous owner had used to talk to their passed partner, a spell of large expense. Most of your day had been put towards the report on it while Jake went to the other estate sale. You now focus on the bottles before you. “What do you think it all is?”

Jake shakes his head. “Honestly, I haven’t got a clue. Could be anything. Some kind of potion, or just your run of the mill healthful tincture. Didn’t try and open any of them so I can’t really speak to anything else. Family wasn’t very forthcoming either, seemed to wish they had the whole ordeal over with.” 

“Gotcha.” That’s pretty common. You reach over the bench surface to grab the rack and pull it towards you to more closely observe. 

It looks like a bunch of glass bottles, about ten in total, each containing some liquid of slightly different color. The bottles are dusty and slightly amber tinged for light protection so you can’t completely tell what exactly is in there. 

“You want me to get started?” 

“In a moment,” Jake says and smiles at you. “Are you hungry at all?” 

“Not when you’re cooking,” you quip. 

Jake snorts and comes around the other side of the bench over to you. It’s totally not true, Jake is actually pretty good in the kitchen. He takes your hand from the counter and holds it in the air between you, rubbing his thumb over the top of your hand. 

“Is that so? Well I suppose I’ll just go make something for myself and leave you alone to starve.” 

“I used to live off ramen noodle packets, you can’t scare me.” 

Jake tosses his head back and laughs. Then he smiles toothily at you and your heart jumps in your chest. “Oh, Dirk,” he sighs happily and pulls your hand up to his mouth, gently kissing the back of it. Then he drops your clasped hands and leans forward to press his mouth to yours in a quick kiss. 

Your cheeks are burning when he pulls away. He’s just so damned charming, it’s not fair. 

It’s not because he spends all day working with charmed objects, either. 

Jake drops your hand and steps away. “I’m gonna go pull something together for us but then I’ll be back to start working on this. Don’t summon any demons or angry ghosts without me.” 

“Yeah sure, I learned my lesson the last time don’t worry.” 

He seems pleased with that response and steps back out of the room, heading over to the kitchen at the other side of the sprawling home that also half acts as his business base of operations. 

With that you try to calm your heart and focus on the new directive before you. You push your computer to the side and get off the stool, heading to some drawers at the edge of the room where you start collecting a few things you need for analysis. Some slides, pH strips, colloidal silver, not forgetting to press the button on the centrifuge so it starts to warm up. 

First thing is first: what’s the base. Is it aromatic, organic, polar or nonpolar? 

You go back to the rack and select a bottle on the end, wiping it off and shaking it. The liquid sticks to the sides of the bottle before dripping down. It looks oily in consistency, so probably lipophilic. You can narrow it down to the family of commutative spells, but you’ve been fooled before. 

Each of the small bottles actually comes with a dropper, which means if it does have magical properties they are potent. Big if, because this doesn’t look that promising to you. 

With that you unscrew the bottle and examine the contents. 

You won’t really be able to tell what color it is until you drop it on a slide, but you chance a preliminary whiff of this bottle first. 

You cannot immediately describe what you smell. The scent reminds you of the tidepools you’ve visited in your life, invoking both a feeling of blue and green and cold wetness of sand under your toes. 

Interesting. 

When you drop it onto the slide, you notice that it looks almost aquamarine in color. 

You’re leaning down to look a little closer at the oily substance, honestly now wondering if this really is nothing more than some kind of health supplement. It looks like an oil one would apply to their skin, maybe in the blue tansy family. 

Usually you wouldn’t jump to such a conclusion, but this set seems so uninteresting you can’t help it. It’s even unlabeled. 

Quite sure of this in fact, you go ahead and pull a small amount through the dropper cap to place a few drops on your fingertips. It spreads like oil. You rub it between your finger tips and smell it. 

Yeah, this really can’t be anything more than an old carrier oil set of some sort. The oceanic scent is even stronger on skin. 

Although it hasn’t gone bad yet considering how old it appears, so it may just be charmed to be preserved. Those little spells are more and more common nowadays. 

You recap the bottle and pull your laptop across the bench back over to you so you can finish that other entry you had been working on. 

You and Jake have compiled an extensive set of records between just the two of you thus far. It’s easy enough to mindlessly fall back into the usual pattern of work, pulling back up the multiple running research tabs you had open concerning the amulet case. You haven’t read up on summoning spells all that much, the field is big enough to deserve its own lifetime of study. You couldn’t possibly expect to know everything about it.

You’re only a minute or so into your work when you feel something. 

It starts like a dull hum in your stomach. You pause and blink at the screen, confused by the sensation’s quick onset. 

You expect it to be transient, but then the feeling isn’t going away. It’s getting worse. 

Mindlessly, you rub your fingers together where you had just touched the oil, and swallow thickly as panic starts to rise. 

Could it have been…? Oh fuck.

This might be magic you’re dealing with here. Anything could happen. But you at least know this isn’t normal. 

All at once the feeling turns from a low hum to a buzz and it shoots out down into your legs. You stand up out of the stool and shove away from the lab bench, looking down at your stomach in horror. 

It happens so fast, it’s a spell for fuck’s sake, but it feels like it takes forever. Under your clothes, you can feel something happening to your skin. You don’t even get the chance to examine yourself, your body does it for you. 

The seams of your pants split apart and then just tear open as, starting from your abdomen and working down, your cells appear to migrate and knit together in a bizarre collision along your midline. 

There is nothing you can do to stop that. 

Immediately losing your balance, you fall on the floor onto your ass with your hands barely catching your body as you hit the floor. 

Oh fuck. 

Okay, something… something is happening to you. Something really weird and very magical is undeniably happening to you. 

You’re starting to think your conclusion about those little bottles may have been more of an erroneous theory. 

As your bared skin knits together into one mass, you decide that yes, you were pretty fucking wrong about that. 

It’s too late now, the reaction is happening. You’re in the spell now. 

Your legs have pulled together into one whole fleshy limb, feet flattening out. For a single, terrifying second it’s just a limb of morphless skin before it changes again. Starting from your waist, orange and vibrant scales erupt from the surface in a cascade, rippling through the entire lower part of your reforming body. Your feet finish the transformation into thin, opaque lined tissue of a lighter orange. Everything is shiny and slick. 

You have not even half a second to register the change before something like pain overtakes your body and you slump on the ground. It’s like an itch, or a full body rash. Everything throbs uncomfortably. 

You’re… thirsty. Deathly parched, dried from inside and out. You lose the ability to hold yourself up any longer in the wake of the change and collapse completely on the floor. 

No sensation makes sense anymore. You don’t even know which way is up. At least the transformation you just endured seems to be stabilized and over, but it’s completely set in. Your normal human form is half gone now, at least as far as you can tell. You hope that it’s just half. 

You should call for help now that you’re locked in this pathetic state, but even that seems like a challenge from your desert dry throat. 

You hear footsteps down the hall and know that you should feel relieved. Instead, embarrassment and mortification fills you. 

You don’t want Jake to see you like this. He’s going…. He’s going to see whatever it is that just happened to you. Then you’ll have to explain. 

These are just distant thoughts as you lay on the floor gasping and thirsty and itching and dizzy, bodily paralyzed with neuronal confusion at the new inputs coming in from the lower half of your body. Your brain can’t make sense of them just yet as just one singular sensation processes: You need water. 

You’ll die if you don’t get water, you swear. You close your eyes and will the feeling to end. 

“Dirk, is everything okay?” You hear from the doorway. “I heard something and-- oh no.” 

All you can manage is a wheezy gasp. 

Jake falls to his knees beside you and you feel him shoving a hand under your upper back to lift you up. “Dirk, are you okay? Oh heavens, please tell me you’re okay.” He sounds so concerned. 

What will his reaction be when he finds out what actually happened, how badly you fucked up? 

“Dirk, please, say something, I-- I need to know you’re okay, please—“

“ _Water_ ,” you rasp. 

Jake is still for a single second before he launches into movement, a hand curling under where the crook of your knee _should have been_ but is instead replaced by flexible joints and endless scales. He picks you up like you’re weightless, one arm supporting your back and the other holding you under your… tail. 

Because you have a tail. That’s what that is, and you should call it what it is.

It’s a blur as Jake carries you down the hallway and before you know it he’s kneeling you down into the nicely sized bathtub in the bathroom. 

He releases his hands from you to immediately turn on the faucet. The temperature doesn’t register with you at all, just relief of _water_. 

You lay there as the tub begins to fill, eyes closed. Your breathing begins to even out into normalcy as the water level increases. 

“Dirk?” Jake presses again after a few long moments, his voice devastatingly concerned. You feel a hand on your cheek.

You groan and refuse to open your eyes. Your arms still feel normal but nothing else makes much sense. You avoid looking down to be faced with this new addendum to your human form. Your shirt is quickly getting soaked in the water. 

But you feel better, at least. Almost normal. 

“I think I fucked up,” you finally manage. 

First comes Jake’s sigh of relief. Then comes the hesitant chuckle. “So the handsome siren speaks.”

“... That is so not funny,” you groan, still not wanting to look down and face the truth. 

“Is there something you want to tell me, my love? Is my beloved actually a creature of the sea, intending to pull me under when I’m unaware and eat my heart now that I’ve fallen into his thrall?”

“ _Jake_ ,” you warn, your head lolling slightly along the bathtub edge. 

“Come on Dirk, let me joke a little. You gave me quite a scare just now, you know.” 

“Sorry,” you sigh and press your lips together unhappily, still not willing to open your eyes. “I guess I should tell you what happened…” He’s silent, waiting for your explanation. “You know that stuff you just brought over? Definitely magical, I have to say.”

“Yeah er, about that. What…. What exactly happened, then?” 

“I thought it _wasn’t_ magical.” 

“Ah,” is all Jake says. 

You flush warmly and are glad you can’t see his face. He’s probably so disappointed in you. How could you have been so _stupid_ and _careless_ , how’s he ever going to want to work alongside with your neglectful self ever again?

You might be stuck like this, anyways. You might never even get to work with him more. You might have just fired yourself. 

“Yeah, sorry,” you sigh. 

“Hey, none of that now,” he says, somehow reading your thoughts. It’s probably written across your face. “I’m just… I’m glad you’re okay.” 

You feel his hand on your shoulder, thumb brushing circles over your clavicle. The concern you feel from him makes you turn red, an obvious red wave coursing through your body. Or who knows, maybe those physiological processes don’t happen when you’re… like this.

You finally manage to open your eyes and look at him, and the concern you see on his face that matches his voice actually does put you at ease. 

“You look stunning, by the way,” he says. “I must say, this suits you well.” 

You blush madly again. “I’ve always been told orange is my color.” 

“It is indeed,” Jake murmurs. You watch as his eyes cast down into the water, to the… tail. That word still is so weird to you to use, even if it is the most apt for the situation going on down there. “Incredible,” he whispers again as he observes. You feel yourself flush again under his gaze. 

“Hey, less ogling the magic project, maybe some more working on reversing this?” 

Jake laughs but doesn’t take his eyes off your finned lower extremity. “I hate to break it to you, love, but we’ve got to follow protocol.” 

“Protocol? What protocol?” 

“The average run of spells in this category is six hours, twelve at most. So we wait.”

You might be stuck here like this for twelve hours?! “You’re shitting me.”

“I’m afraid not.” 

“Fuck me.” You pull your hands up to rub at your eyes. “You don’t think there could be a reversal agent in the set?”

“I’ll take a look, but by the time we figure it out it may have already run its course.” Jake offers. “Though I must say I’ve got half a mind to leave you like this for a little while.” You blink at him with confusion before you notice again the fascinated gleam in his eye as he gazes down at the bright orange in the water. One of his hands, now holding on to the edge of the bathtub where he’s knelt, slips over into the tub and rubs down the side of your lower extremity. 

You shiver and jump slightly at the new sensation that provides. Wow, that’s… that’s different. Not completely foreign, just different. Your brain has almost made sense of it all. You clamp your jaw shut in embarrassment, looking back up from the tub to Jake. 

He’s just grinning as he gazes down at your changed half.

“Jake, come on, I’m your business partner not your next case report.” Well, you are also his boyfriend. 

“Oh, and why not? This is the new frontier you’ve got down here. The peak of discovery. Such clean transformation spells are hard to come by.” He squeezes gently along the tail and you shudder. 

“ _Jake_ ,” you snap. “At least go check. Please?” 

He chuckles again and removes his hand from the water. “If you insist, my lovely merman.” 

Yeah, that’s the word you definitely didn’t want to hear. You wince. 

“I can’t say I imagined this would be how this day went, but I’m not complaining,” he continues, still appearing so amused and pleased for some reason. You don’t understand why he looks like that, shouldn’t he be upset with you?

“You aren’t the one stuck in a tub for the rest of the day.” 

“And I know you love a good long bath,” Jake counters. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you anything you need. I’m… I’m sure you’d do the same for me if I was in your position.” 

If you were stuck and helpless and locked in a new form, that is to say. 

At least you’re still half human, but that still doesn’t make you feel much better. 

The water is still filling. You attempt inputting direction into your newfound limb, directing your tail in the water with the specific goal of splashing Jake. 

You are successful. The tail smacks in the water, fins sending a barrage of droplets in Jake’s direction. 

He reels back from the tub, throwing a hand back and laughing. When he puts it down his glasses are speckled with water. 

“Fine, fine, I’ll get on with it!” He promises. “If you need anything just yell, okay? I’m gonna go take a look at those potions and see if there’s anything we can do. You just sit tight, hm?” 

You make a show of rolling your eyes and Jake just grins at you. 

“Sincerely, though, you’re alright?”

“Well I turned into half a fish but I think otherwise everything’s pretty damn swell.” 

“Glad to hear it.” He pats the edge of the tub twice and then shoves himself to standing. “I’ll be back in a few to check on you. Try to _relax_.” 

_Relax_. What does that even mean. 

“Sure, what else is there to do.”

That seems to please Jake. He stands and heads out of the bathroom. You watch him leave, feeling both bereft and relieved by the loss of his presence. 

At least now that you’re alone you can maybe feel things out a little better. 

You have a tail instead of legs now, and Jake had a point. It _is_ fascinating. You wish you had easy access to a larger body of water to better determine the form’s functionality. Could you even breathe underwater? It seems this form is meant to be in and stay in water, if your relieved craving was anything to go by. How well could you swim? 

It still kind of hurts your brain to look down there and not see legs. 

The shirt you’re wearing is starting to become uncomfortable in the water, so you pull it off and toss it over the side of the tub. 

There is no distinct line where one form becomes another. Right over where your hip bones would be, scales smoothly appear. 

That leads you to another observation: where the hell did your dick go? It’s gone, or at least hidden. You don’t even know if this form has such equivalent anatomy, or at least you haven’t discovered it yet. 

Well… obviously there’s got to be a way to shit and piss at least, not even heavily magical creatures can escape that aspect of higher existence. 

After a few more minutes of trying to ignore the situation, you give in and run your hands over the sides of the tail, going down all the way to the fins at the end. They are firmly attached. The feeling of hands on scales versus skin is different, even your own. You still can’t quite make sense of it. It’s not like you’ve given yourself a good feeling up recently, either, so it’s not much to compare to. You can’t make out any particular orifice at the end, either. 

So you move back up to the top again and examine closely. Then you follow with your hands, rubbing over the front of the tail slowly. 

You almost miss it, the little divot where your crotch almost would be, maybe slightly lower. 

With the stimulation, it opens, actually surprising you. You didn’t control that. Maybe eventually you would be able to, but for now, no. You didn’t do that, or at least you think. 

Okay well, that answers one question, you can move on now.

Except you can’t. You’re still curious about it. Slowly you advance your finger over the rim of the small hole, circling it once. You can make out the flap of scales that regularly would cover it folded over the top. 

The sensation is actually very pleasant, more than pleasant, completely unlike any kind of pleasure you’ve ever felt in your life. Yeah, sure, you’ve been rimmed a few times before, but this is distinctly different. Either way, the sensation of it coming from the front of your body as opposed to the back is weird enough. 

Without even thinking of the consequences or why you’re doing it, you attempt to slide your index finger inside. 

Your entire digit slips in, muscles distinctly squeezing along the length of whatever internal organ this is. 

It doesn’t hurt at all. 

In fact, it feels _really fucking good_. 

You pull out in shock of how incredible the feeling is. You couldn’t even describe it if you tried, it just feels amazing. 

Holy shit. 

It’s like the feeling of your prostate getting poked or your dick sucked but multiplied through the orifice and radiating through your abdomen. 

You’re immediately embarrassed by how much you want to put your finger back in there. 

But you can’t… You can’t help the curiosity, the call of exploration that would drive you crazy if you ignored it. 

So slide your finger back in. 

Fuck, it’s so different. You can feel the muscles pressing up against it but not quite resisting, almost welcoming the new fullness. 

You try to see it from a scientific perspective-- what exactly is the purpose of this organ? If there are other holes down here, you’ve definitely discovered the one for procreation. Or something like that, maybe a self fishy pleasure hole. Who fucking knows, hopefully you won’t be stuck like this long enough to find out. 

You lay back along the side of the tub and close your eyes, just focusing on the sensation. You pull out and start by circling the rim, which you know now does have some measure of increased sensitivity to it. Then you push down to the first joint of your finger, and after that you lose self control and shove it down to the knuckle and back up. 

You can’t exactly locate a focus of pleasure, it’s like the entire hole is just that. 

You try thrusting in and out, and _fuck_ , an embarrassing gasp leaves your mouth. You keep going as the movement causes that baseline pleasure to grow. 

Before you know it you’ve got another finger in, now feeling some tightness that still isn’t unwelcome, and you’ve got your mouth hanging open with your eyes closed. You press your head back into the edge of the tub, completely lost in the feeling as you thrust in and out of yourself.

“Oh my,” you hear from the doorway. 

Your eyes fly open to see Jake standing there holding a pile of towels with a book on top. You pull your hand out and away like your own insides hurt you.

Your face burns as he grins at you in an unbearably pleased manner and goes to place everything he’s carrying on the counter. You’re really in for it now. 

“Was I interrupting something?” He teases. “By all means, don’t stop on my account. I was enjoying the show.” 

You’re mortified. What the hell just happened to you? Did you lose track of time? You can’t believe you got walked in on by your boyfriend getting yourself off. 

It’s not like you two haven’t had sex yet. You two do regularly, one would almost say ‘a lot’. 

But something about this, being caught in this form doing what you were doing to yourself, that just strips you bare. 

“Give a guy a warning next time,” you groan and lean forward, folding the tail upwards and wrapping your arms around it as if your knees were still there. 

“And miss out on that view? Never.” . 

This is so embarrassing, wow. You really can’t believe that just happened to you. 

Jake throws a towel on the floor beside the tub and kneels on it, apparently his solution to comfortably keeping you company. 

You wish you could collapse into an atom and disappear from existence. 

Jake looks happy as could be in stark opposition to you. 

You sigh and avoid meeting his gaze, feeling awfully exposed. It’s not like you can escape, either. 

You also know he’s not going to let it go. 

“So,” he starts, looking at you expectantly. You definitely do not look at him, just glaring into the bathtub water beyond your folded tail. “Are you going to share this newfound discovery with me?”

Your face burns even more and you turn your head to give him the most unimpressed expression you can muster. 

He chuckles and leans in closer over the tub edge. “Oh come on, what’s that face for.” 

“Man, you really just know how to rub it in, huh,” you say, and end up sounding way more bitter than you intended. 

Jake has the audacity to look wounded, then concerned. 

Okay, fine. It’s not that you’re upset with him, it’s more just the situation. 

He is not helping. 

“Come on, this isn’t exactly my finest hour here.” 

Jake’s expression turns sly again. “Oh, you’re always fine.” 

It is a wonder you ever fell for this asshole. 

You turn back to the water, done with all that aggravating charm. 

“Hey there,” he says, clearly not done with you. He reaches over the edge, sitting up, and puts his hand around the back of your neck where it meets your shoulder. The hand on your bare skin pauses you. 

With his other hand he turns your face with its still unimpressed expression towards him.

He only smiles and leans forward to kiss you.

It’s game over then. You fold completely. 

Jake’s kisses always melt you apart, thawing even your iciest of moments. 

His mouth brushes your upper lip, then your lower, and folds over both. His hand is firm against the back of your neck, a promise that he is here to stay, a needed reminder that you are his. Jake could kiss you like this and you’d do just about anything in return. 

“What’s the matter?” He murmurs when he pulls apart a little, still holding your face close to his. 

You sigh against his mouth but answer him honestly. “You caught me in a compromising situation during what was already a rather compromising situation,” you respond, your heart now verifiably starting to pound in your ribcage. 

“Compromising? I’d disagree with that word choice.” 

You feel the hand that had been bracing your cheek dropping down, fingers grazing over your bare chest chest. 

“Adventurous? I like that much better.”

“Of course you would.” 

He smirks against your mouth. His hand continues lowering across your abdomen. 

“Jake, what are you doing.” You say this as you unfold the tail back into the water, inadvertently allowing him better access.

The hand finally stops where your skin turns into scales. 

“Am I not allowed to embrace my beloved?” His fingers drum once over your stomach, some fingers over the skin, some over the scales. 

“That is absolutely not the point,” you counter before he kisses you again. You can feel the stubborn irritation falling away by the second. 

He hums against your mouth and his fingers drop even lower over the scales. 

“May I?” He whispers against your mouth, and you know what he’s asking for. 

He would stop if you said no. 

Jake also knows you won’t say no.

You just nod in response, too embarrassed now to open your eyes. It’s not like it’s your first time with him! Far from. But this is different, the circumstances wildly changed from when you’re in bed with him. 

Jake’s hand confidently pushes on, down over the scales. When your hand finds his to help him find the hidden spot along your tail he grins against your mouth and kisses you harder, like he’s expressing gratitude for your help. 

You help him find that entrance again and once you know his finger is on it you let go, shoving your hands back into the water of the tub and fisting them there at your sides.

Of course, it’s so much different when it’s another person’s touch. 

Jake slides the tip of his finger in and you breath out in a shudder against his grinning mouth. He’s still holding your head with his other hand, and you almost wish he would just get in the water with you already. Being kept separate from him by the tub makes you feel more like an experiment, which… Well, you really kind of are. 

Like when you did it yourself, his single digit slides into the hole easily. He pulls back out, circles the rim, making a thoughtful noise as he examines the area with his finger. 

Then he places it back in, making you almost jump. He pulls his face away from yours but still keeps his hand around the back of your neck, which is just about the only thing holding you steady. 

You know he’s watching you for your reaction. He wants to see how you fall apart. It is impossible to keep your composure like this, so you know Jake is going to get what he wants. 

His finger advances into you, sliding in the whole way. 

It’s distinctly different than the few times Jake has fingered you open. With that, Jake begins a similar pattern of exploration to what you had been doing with yourself. You notice him circling the inside, finger brushing deep to superficial to feel for a change in texture or difference in the muscle surrounding. The only issue is that it is sending you writhing with pleasure and sensations you desperately want more of. 

“Jake,” you gasp, half warning, half begging. 

You open your eyes just long enough to see his smirk before he pulls his hand out and pushes it back in, testing what he must have seen you doing to yourself only minutes ago. Jake starts with just that one digit, and at some point slips in two. 

You feel the hole stretching to easily accommodate his fingers, slightly thicker than yours. 

You close your eyes and fall into the sensation of his hands within you. You open them for a second to notice that Jake is watching you with rapt fascination as you gasp and shudder in the water before him. 

At some point Jake pauses and pulls his hand away. You’re about to object to him stopping, but then he stands and pulls his shirt off before stepping into the water. He slips into the warm water beside you, his shorts still on but ignored as he positions himself along your body to accommodate you both in the tub. 

“Apologies,” he explains as he slides his hand back over your tail, quickly locating the hidden entrance again. “I felt a little far from you.” 

The water has soaked his shorts and you can clearly see the outline of his erection through them as the clothing sticks to his body. It’s tantalizing. Seeing him like that would regularly make you yearn to taste it or feel it inside you, but today you know what you want clearly. 

“Jake,” you say, and put your hand on it. 

His hands are sliding back over the scales but he pauses and looks up to your face. Your expression must clearly read one way because in response licks his lips, probably not even realizing he just did. It’s kind of obscene, but you can tell he’s just as aroused as you are. 

“Just… come on, dude. Just fuck me already.” 

Jake’s eyes widen slightly and he regards you somewhat carefully. “Are you sure?”

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to?” 

“No, but—“

“Well great, but if you give me any more bullshit about how it’s in the name of science I swear I’ll--” He cuts you off with a kiss and shifts in the water over you so that he’s straddling your tail between his knees and undoing his shorts. 

“No, no science here now, my dear. I just…. Hm. It appears that you’re quite helpless like this. I’m finding I like you like that a little more than I should?” 

“No shit asshole, this is just dawning on you? Didn’t you just play my landlocked carcass like a goddamn piano while I just sat here and had to take it?”

Jake just laughs and kisses you again. You know very well what he means. Before it had been a curiosity, to see how you reacted. You were helpless then, and you’re helpless now. 

You want Jake to fuck you and for you to just take it, and you know it’s going to feel so good, like it did before, but even _more_.

Jake is finally lowering into you, and it does take some help on your end to guide him into that difficult to find entrance, but when he enters and pushes against the inside, you groan in an unattractively needy way. 

“Are you alright?” Jake gasps, hard as could be as he enters and you know that it must feel incredible for him too with the walls of the hole pressing back against him. 

“Please,” you gasp. “Don’t stop.” 

Jake exhales is satisfaction and slides until he’s sheathed completely in the tail. “I had no intention of doing that,” he tells you and braces himself with his hands planted in the water around your body. 

Then he thrusts once. 

It’s amazing- every sensitive nerve in there stretched to feel it all, the pressure and slide of every angle. You can’t do anything but take it as he thrusts again. The water is stirring in the bathtub around you as he starts to pick up a steady pace. You latch onto his shoulders and neck with your hands, needing something to hold on to as he starts to fuck your changed form. 

“Jake, _fuck_ ,” you gasp. He just chuckles breathlessly in response, looking with wonder between your face and where he disappears inside you. 

All you can do is take it. He was right, you are completely helpless like this. You couldn’t throw him off easily with your existing wiry frame. The tail cannot help you in this tiny bathtub, either. You might as well be tied to a bed. It’s kinkier than anything you two have attempted together in your burgeoning relationship, and so hot you can barely stand it. 

All you can do is take him as he fucks you. 

You don’t think you can come. You don’t know much about merman physiology, but it feels like the act of having something inside you is enough. 

You actually end up wrong on all accounts. 

“Dirk,” Jake says, a warning. He’s going to come. 

“Do it,” you tell him, your voice strangled. “Inside me.” 

Jake gasps in response but doesn’t stop. You feel him start to falter as his orgasm hits him, and as soon as his abs give that revealing seize you know he’s coming. It starts to fill the inside, and that’s when you come. 

“What the--” you start and are cut off as it hits you, your hips thrusting up into his as it radiates through your body. If you had legs, you’d call it toe-curling. Instead all you can do is shake and shudder and writhe under him as the orgasm rocks you in a way you’ve never felt before. 

Jake eventually comes to a stop, breathing with exertion over you. The aftershocks are still hitting you, each one a little less than the last. 

He pulls out and you just know that the hole… shut itself off. Seals over, almost. Like it would take work to stick even a finger back in there again. All of this new anatomy is starting to weird you out. 

“Did you….?” Jake questions. 

“Yes,” you respond certainly. “That was…. Yeah, that was definitely what you think it was.” 

You came hard, but you’re pretty sure it was because Jake came inside you. He seems to be considering the same as well.

“How… interesting….” Jake murmurs. You can tell that he’s not going to let that go, either. 

For now he collapses into the water on his side next to you, and with one hand turns your face to his so he can kiss you once more. 

“Is your burning scientific curiosity satisfied?” You ask him dryly. You body feels relaxed and fucked out, so apparently that doesn’t change between forms. 

“Oh, we both know it was never really about that,” he admits with a pleased smile. 

-

Eventually you do go back to normal. Your tail fades back into human legs somewhere around two in the morning, and you have had to refill the tub with warm water three times over by then.

Jake stubbornly stays by your side the whole time, leaving only to get food for you both. As the night wears on, you keep catching him looking at you with this particular expression, one that you could only describe as ‘adoring’. 

Still, climbing into a dry bed with Jake in the middle of the night is complete relief. 

“There’s no one else I’d rather do this job with,” he murmurs into your shoulder as he holds you tightly to him.

He doesn’t talk anymore about what happened, but you know it still is far from over. 

-

You are right in the end, because the next day over coffee he makes a diagram theorizing on merfolk mating that mirrors seahorse mating behavior. It feels like one of the most uncomfortable conversations you’ve ever endured in your life. 

The mischievous look on his face spells something even worse when he’s finished. 

“So, what do you say about trying the next one?”


End file.
